I was having a relaxing day working on my blog and a bunch of small projects that I can get into on occasion. The only thing better than writing about wines is enjoying wines, but the day had been dry. I am, unfortunately, not one of the writers that is always surrounded and immersed in wine and there are plenty of days and even nights when I do not have a glass of wine. On the other hand, my Bride had a very busy day and had been running around trying to keep everyone happy and even though we had Italian food the evening before she was craving pizza.

She was not in the mood to go out, as she wanted to relax at home, which she so enjoys. She went to one of the small local chains of pizzas to get a pie. Michigan if you are not aware is home to two giant pizza corporations and no we don’t get their pizzas, but the pizza business is huge in this state, and I really can’t speak for other states, as I have not had pizza outside of the Detroit area, except years ago when I was very young, an uncle of mine opened the first pizzeria in St. Catherine’s, Ontario because he saw what a gold mine they were here in Detroit. She got a pizza that I would approve of, just tons of meat, onions, mushrooms, olives, peppers and onions, as she knows that I don’t like frou-frou pizzas. She likes to eat a pizza with a knife and fork and I just like the grab a big slice and fold it, just like I was taught back in the Fifties, did I just say that? ; of course that must be a mistake on my part.

Well I went down to the cellar to see what I could find and believe it or not, I found something that I thought would be fun to try. It was a wine that I had bought when it was brand new and sometimes one puts the bottle aside in the cellar and it gets forgotten about. Of course I got nervous, because the cork broke apart and I could neither work the cork out with that wire contraption that I have and I couldn’t poke the cork into the bottle. So I slowly worked a hole through the cork, then I got a decanter, a funnel and a coffee filter and poured the wine through the filter. The aroma was wonderful and the deep color was fascinating as it filled the decanter, no sign of aging. I had grabbed a bottle of San Felice Il Grigio Chianti Riserva 1986. After two years in oak, and one in the bottle, then all those years in the cellar there was still heat in that first taste, the Sangiovese grape has enormous life to it, as I have observed over the years. You could never tell without seeing the label that it was a thirty-year-old wine, so now I am really looking forward to some of my heavy duty Italians that have been resting for decades. See what a pizza night can cause. As a postscript to this story, we didn’t finish the bottle that evening and the next night, the wine was a bit tired compared to the first night, but still very drinkable.